


All Of A Sudden

by DisasterShipBlonde



Category: The New Pope, The Young Pope (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Ballet, Character Study, M/M, Roman Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22864705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterShipBlonde/pseuds/DisasterShipBlonde
Summary: I originally posted this on Tumblr for the three people who might care. I adore Assente and think he's such a tragic figure. The hints we're given about his backstory are so tantalising, I had to play with them. Why did this ridiculously elegant, liberal-leaning gay man with so many big, difficult feelings join the Church?This is a sketch more than a fic, but I might be mad enough to go deeper.My favourite “How I became a priest” stories basically boil down to “I was minding my own business when suddenly, what the fuck-”So here we go...
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	All Of A Sudden

The eighties are a scary, isolating time, especially when you have a poster of Baryshnikov in your bedroom. Young Mario with his cut glass, overstudied English and his ballet poise and his nerdy leftist magazines is a terribly promising young man, but terribly shy. He covers it with the haughty look he perfects in the mirror, but it turns out that skill doesn’t make you any friends. Mario hates his hometown, he hates those gossipy, small-minded people, he hates those pointed questions - “When is Mario going to find a nice girl?” - but he has a way out, and that is dance. Six foot two, rail thin (though he is working on that, lifting bottles of sand in the privacy of his room), he looks more like his mother than his father (thank God, honestly, with Dad across town with his new family acting as if Mario was a poor first try best forgotten).

And of course he was brought up Catholic, and the Church is a source of comfort in a worn-sweater kind of way, and it makes his mother happy, or less unhappy. And she was so proud of his altar-boy days when he knelt holding the communion plate to stop the Host from dropping to the floor. Her pride makes him happy, or less unhappy, and the priest’s eyes are kind or friendly or whatever it is that makes his tummy flip like that. But that’s the extent of it.

And then, thank Baryshnikov, he’s accepted at one of Italy’s most prestigious dance studios. He is told daily he has God-given talent, and deep inside he knows this is true. His English is praised for its precision and refinement. His polished haughty look is trained into the other boys. And as for them, they’re mesmerising, terrifying, wonderful. When they make bawdy jokes he doesn’t always understand them, but it doesn’t matter. Most of them think it’s cute he’s such an incurable geek with his gappy teeth and his dimples, and God, he can move. These boys seem to know things Mario has only so much as guessed at, like they’ve been to some education session he somehow missed. One or two of them offer him a different kind of education, but he’s just… not… quite… ready.

And when his mother dies, this bunch of dysfunctional ballet boys are there for him. You’d think Dad would step in, write a letter, say something, but no. For all intents and purposes, he’s an orphan. You need to milk that for all it’s worth, his friends joke. Everyone loves an orphan.

And he could go under, but he doesn’t. Instead he keeps dancing, keeps smoking to stay thin (and the odd sniff of coke when it’s offered, why not?), keeps up with the news because turning away from the suffering of others feels wrong, even sinful. He has nightmares about turning an ankle and losing it all. Because it’s a God-given gift he’s got, and it’s a heavenly blessing to know people like him exist. That they find each other. That there is such a thing as People Like Him. Where else would they end up?

“It’s this or the Church,” someone says, “Haha.”

Ha.

Haha.

Yeah.

Imagine that.

**Author's Note:**

> You cannot tell me he wasn't doing coke in the Sistine Chapel bathroom that one time.


End file.
